Originally Posted by billvp
plus unless you bought the car new, you likely don't know if the car has a tune on it ... you may think it's stock, but it's not
if you replace the gears though, you can't consider it "BONE STOCK"
Technically you're right Bill. Maybe I should have said a "bone" stock motor.
But when an SRT driver installs a "smaller diameter" pair of DR's on their car (and nothing else) it changes the overall gear ratio. And yet most everybody would still say he was running a "STOCK" vehicle when he rips off some 12 sec. runs. Instead of a 13.3 the magazines say they're supposed to run.
Drag Strips use to have a Pure Stock class, but you were still allowed to run any gear ratio that would fit in the "Stock" differential housing.
Mercedes has offered several cars over the years with 3.50:1 and even 3.90:1 gear ratios, and I assume those differential housings would probably fit where ours does now. It's a "Stock" Mercedes part, and our car is "mechanically" ALL Mercedes.
We were all saddled with what "Mother Mercedes" felt was the ideal gear ratio for the Crossfire, simply because that's what they installed in their SLK. This, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander". theology may work out fine in Germany where the Autobahn beckons, but in the good old U.S.of A where 65/70 mph is still the norm, (in a lot of places) it basically suc's.
Some will say, the NA Crossfire is a "sports car" and never meant to be a drag racer, and they would be right. But if you go to nearly any other "Sports Car" forum you will read where some Z car, Supra, BMW, Porsche, RX8, or what have you walked on a NA XF from a traffic light, and it perpetuates the myth that Crossfire's are slugs. Simply because ALL those other cars have better gear ratios than ours.
Oh well, the whole thing is basically "academic" anyway, until somebody figures out how to reflash the computer so it doesn't go into "limp mode" when somebody actually does install a better gear ratio.
But then reflashing the computer makes it NOT BONE STOCK.
